Fiber-optics along with the speciality fibers has transformed, and continues to transform handling of information in the telecommunication systems to the present day's terabit communication links. In addition, advancements of this technology and the related components have left considerable impact on totally different area - termed as Sensing, which spans but not limited to civil, mechanical, aeronautical, environmental, bio/chemical engineering. Today, fiber optics and the based components have emerged to a level where they play key roles in almost all of the emerging & relevant engineering applications. Further, the significance of nano-scaling has shown tremendous advancements not only in the area of optical fiber technology but in the photonics technology as a whole. Nanophotonics has a potential to revolutionize the field of telecommunications, computing and sensing. Equally and importantly, Surface Plasmon polaritons technology has also an important and definitive role to play in the advancement of telecommunication and the sensing technologies. This is because of their ability to confine and guide electromagnetic waves in a subwavelength scale, leading to the inherent possibility of the manipulation of optical signal in ultra-fast and miniaturized photonic devices.

Hence, the feature issue of OSA Applied Optics would be focused on the emerging applications of fiber optics and would include Plasmonics, Nanophotonics, Fiber Sensors and Optical Fiber Components including Specialty fibers. This feature issue of Applied Optics would include select papers (invited and contributory) from PHOTONICS2010, the tenth in this series of biennial International Conference on Fiber Optics and Photonics being held in Guwahati, India during December 12-15, 2010. This conference is aimed to explore recent technical advances with state-of-the-art reviews and to delineate outstanding Photonics science & technology issues towards futuristic research and applications in the thrust zones of the following topics to be covered in the conference: